What Are the Barriers to the Development of Convict Criminology in Australia?

Convict Criminology (CC) is a concept that has its roots in the USA in the mid-1990s and was created by a group of previously incarcerated academics (Ross and Richards, 2003). The movement has spread to other countries, with similar groups commencing in the UK and Canada with large numbers of active members (Richards and Ross, 2001; Aresti, 2012; Ross et al, 2014; Aresti and Darke, 2016; Newbold, 2017; Ross and Darke, 2018) with others such as New Zealand having smaller numbers of members (Newbold, 2017). Some countries are in the process of formalizing a CC group, but due to numerous barriers the progress is slow (Richards et al., 2008; Aresti, 2012; Hakeem et al., 2015; Aresti and Darke, 2016; Newbold, 2017; Earle, 2018; Ross and Vianello, 2020). This paper will discuss the barriers faced in developing convict criminology in Australia. It will provide context to the need for the lived experiences of previously incarcerated people to enhance criminological research in this country. In addition to this, the paper will provide a rationale as to the insider perspectives that previously incarcerated academics can provide to enhance the quality of criminological scholarship in Australia.